Your Parenting Mojo - Respectful, research-based parenting ideas to help kids thrive

Do you worry that your child isn't eating enough...or is eating too much? Do you wish they would eat a more balanced diet...but don't want to be the Vegetable Police? Do you find yourself in constant negotiations over your child's favorite snacks? You're not alone! Join me for a conversation with Ellyn Satter MS, MSSW, author of many books including Child of Mine: Feeding With Love and Good Sense. Ms. Satter developed the approach to feeding children that's known as Division of Responsibility, which means that the parent is responsible for the what, when, and where of eating, and the child is responsible for whether and how much. It all sounds pretty simple, but when you're actually navigating eating with your child it can seem a whole lot more complicated: Should we worry about our child's eating in the long term if they won't eat vegetables now? Should we restrict access to children's food? What should we do about picky eating? Ms. Satter helps us to understand her ideas on these important questions and much more. In the conversation we discussed some questions that you can answer to identify whether you are what Ms. Satter defines as Eating Competent: Do you agree or disagree with these statements? I enjoy food and I am comfortable with my enjoyment of food and I take an interest in unfamiliar food. I eat as much as I am hungry for. I plan for feeding myself. Agreeing with these statements indicates you are likely Eating Competent. Disagreeing means you are missing out on eating as one of life’s great pleasures and putting up with a lot of unnecessary misery. Do you have to be miserable to eat well and be healthy? Not at all. People who are Eating Competent eat better and are healthier: they weigh less, have better medical tests, and function better, emotionally and socially.   Ellyn Satter's Books: Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family: How to Eat, How to Raise Good Eaters, How to Cook How to Get Your Kid to Eat: But Not Too Much (Affiliate links).   References Chang, S. (2019, December 4). Back to basics: All about MyPlate food groups. U.S. Department of Agriculture. Retrieved from https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2017/09/26/back-basics-all-about-myplate-food-groups Cooke, L.J., Wardle, J., Gibson, E.L., Sapochnik, M., Sheiham, A., & Lawson, M. (2003). Demographic, familial and trait predictors of fruit and vegetable consumption by pre-school children. Public Health Nutrition 7(2), 295-302. Curtin, S.C. (2019). Trends in cancer and heart disease death rates among adults aged 45-64: United States 1999-2017. National Vital Statistics Reports 68(5), 1-9. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr68/nvsr68_05-508.pdf Fayet-Moore, F., McConnell, A., Cassettari, T., Tuck, K., Petocz, P., & Kim, J. (2019). Vegetable intake in Australian children and adolescents: The importance of consumption frequency, eating occasion and its association with dietary and sociodemographic factors. Public Health Nutrition 23(3), 474-487. Fryar, C.D., Carroll, M.D., & Attful, J. (2020). Prevalence of overweight, obesity, and severe obesity among adults aged 20 and over: United States, 1960-1962 through 2017-2018. National Center for Health Statistics https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/obesity-adult-17-18/overweight-obesity-adults-H.pdf Jones, B.L. (2018). Making time for family meals: Parental influences, home eating environments, barriers and protective factors. Physiology & Behavior 193, 248-251. Larson, N., & Story, M. (2013). A review of snacking patterns among children and adolescents: What are the implications of snacking for weight status? Childhood obesity 9(2), 104-115. Satter, E. (2007). Hierarchy of food needs. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior 39(5), S187-S188. Satter, E. (2007). Eating competence: Definition and evidence for the Satter Eating Competence Model. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior 39(5), S142-S153. Satter, E.M. (1986). The feeding relationship. Journal of the American Dietetic Association 86, 352-356.

When you’re learning a new skill, information is critical.  Without that, it’s very difficult to make any kind of meaningful change.   But I see a parallel between learning new skills and respectful parenting: I like to say that love between parent and child is necessary but not sufficient - and that respect is the missing ingredient.  With learning a new skill, knowledge is necessary - but not sufficient.   And support is the missing ingredient.   You might remember from our conversation with Dr. Chris Niebauer a while ago that our overactive left brains tend to make up stories about our experiences to integrate these experiences into the narratives we tell about ourselves.   If we’re “the kind of person who triumphs through adversity,” a setback will be taken in stride.  If we’re “the kind of person who has been hurt,” each new individual hurt makes much more of a mark.  The new experiences have to be made to fit with the framework that’s already in place.   Especially when you’re learning a skill related to difficult experiences you’ve had, your left brain wants to keep itself safe.  It might tell you: “I don’t need to do this.  Things aren’t that bad.  I’ll just wait until later / tomorrow / next week.”   And when that happens, you need support.  That support can be from a great friend, although sometimes you don’t want even your closest friends to know that you shout at or smack your child.   Therapy can be really helpful - but it’s also really expensive.   Sometimes the thing that’s most helpful is someone who’s learning the tools alongside you (so they aren’t trying to look back and remember what it was like to be in your situation; theirs is different, but they are struggling too…) who isn’t a regular presence in your life.   There’s no danger you’re going to run into them at the supermarket, or a kid’s birthday party.   You can actually be really honest with them and know it won’t come and bite you in the butt.   That’s what today’s guests, Marci and Elizabeth, discovered when they started working together.  Separated by cultural differences, fourteen(!) time zones, and very different lives, they found common ground in their struggles and have developed a deep and lasting friendship.   If you’d like to work on taming your triggered feelings - and get help from your own Accountabuddy in the process - the Taming Your Triggers workshop is for you.   Join the waitlist and we'll let you know when doors reopen. Click the banner to learn more!    

How does trauma affect us?   Yes, we feel it in our brains - we get scared, frustrated, and angry - often for reasons we don’t fully understand.   But even if our brains have managed to cover up the trauma; to paper a veneer over it so everything seems fine, that doesn’t mean everything actually is fine - because as our guest in this episode, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk says: The Body Keeps The Score.   What he means is that the effects of the trauma you’ve experienced don’t just go away, and can’t just be papered over.  Your body will still hold the evidence in tension, headaches, irritability (of minds and bowels), insomnia...and all of this may come out when your child does something you wish they wouldn’t.   Perhaps it’s something your parent always used to resent doing, and made it super clear to you every time they did it for you.   Perhaps it was something you did as a child and were punished for doing (maybe you were even hit for it...your body is literally remembering this trauma when your child reproduces the behavior).   Lack of manners, talking back, making a mess, not doing as you were told, being silly...even if logically you now know that these are relatively small things, when your child does them it brings back your body’s memories of what happened to you.   Dr. van der Kolk helps us to understand more about how this shows up for us.  Sometimes understanding can be really helpful.  But sometimes you also need new tools, and support as you learn them, and accountability.   If you’re struggling with your reactions to your child’s difficult behavior - whether you’re going into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn mode, the Taming Your Triggers workshop can help.   Join the waitlist and we'll let you know when doors reopen. Click the banner to learn more!       Dr. van der Kolk's Book: The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (Affiliate link).   Jump to highlights: 01:00 Introducing Dr. van der Kolk 01:58 Invitation to the Taming Your Triggers Workshop 02:56 A note on some technical difficulties we had while recording this episode 03:14 People often want easy answers: Talking about why we feel like we need pills and alcohol to deal with trauma and not make use of other methods which seem more beneficial 08:16 "We become who we are based on the experiences we had and these early experiences really set your expectations" 11:53 Dr. van der Kolk’s ongoing research on touch and trauma that looks into the virtually unstudied field of touch 14:42 To effectively deal with trauma, people need to discover who they are and find the words for their internal experiences 16:10 On mindfulness and yoga: the physical focus on movement in yoga may open up some space for mindfulness 20:45 Rolfing : opening up the body so that it is released from the configuration it adopted to deal with trauma 23:07 The importance of words and finding somebody who can helps you to find words as cautiously as they can, without inflicting too much of their own value system on you 25:31 Dr. van der Kolk’s current agenda for kids to be taught to have a language for their internal experience 28:27 Two of the most important scientifically proven predictors of adult function 31:26 Dr. van der Kolk talks about Developmental Trauma Disorder 38:31 The power of peer and community support in healing trauma 41:32 Wrapping up   Links: The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of TraumaMy Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and BodiesNo Self, No Problem: How Neuropsychology Is Catching Up to BuddhismTaming Your Triggers Workshop   References D’Andrea, W., Ford, J., Stolbach, B., Spinazzola, J., & van der Kolk, B. (2012). Understanding interperonsal trauma in children: Why we need a developmentally appropriate trauma diagnosis. American Journal of Orthopsyhchiatry 82(2), 187-200. Goessl, V.C., Curtiss, J.E., & Hofman, S.G. (2017). The effect of heart rate variability biofeedback training on stress and anxiety: A meta-analysis. Psychological Medicine 47, 2578-2586. Haines, S.K. (2019).The politics of trauma: Somatics, healing, and social justice. Berkeley: North Atlantic. Menachem, R. (2017). My grandmother’s hand: Racialized trauma and the pathway to mending our hearts and bodies. Las Vegas: Central Recovery Press. Miller, A. (2006). The body never lies: The lingering effects of hurtful parenting. New York: Norton. National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine (n.d.). Frontiers in the treatment of trauma: how to target treatment to help patients reclaim their lives after trauma. The Main Session with Bessel van der Kolk, MD and Ruth Buczynski, PhD. NICABM. Tippet, K. (2019, December 26). Bessel van der Kolk: How trauma lodges in the body. On Being. Retrieved from: https://onbeing.org/programs/bessel-van-der-kolk-how-trauma-lodges-in-the-body/ van der Kolk, B. (2017). Developmental trauma disorder: Toward a rational diagnosis for children with complex trauma histories. Psychiatric Annals 35(5), 401-408. van der Kolk, B. (2016). The devastating effects of ignoring child maltreatment in psychiatry: Commentary on “The enduring neurobiological effects of abuse and neglect.” Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 57(3), 267-270. van der Kolk, B.A., Stone, L., West, J., Rhodes, A., Emerson, D., Suvak, M., & Spinazzola, J. (2014). Yoga as an adjunctive treatment for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 75(6), e559-e565. van der Kolk, B. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. New York: Penguin. van der Kolk, B., Stone, L., West, J., Rhodes, A., Emerson, D., Suvak, M., & Spinazzola, J. (2014). Yoga as an adjunctive treatment for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 75(6), e559-e565. van der Kolk, B. (2006). Clinical implications of neuroscience research in PTSD. Annals – New York Academy of Sciences 1071(1), 277. van der Kolk, B., & van der Hart, O. (1989). Pierre Janet & the breakdown of adaptation in psychological trauma. American Journal of Psychiatry 146(12), 1530-1540.

When we're having a hard time interacting with our family members, it's pretty common for our first reaction to be: "I need this person (or these people!) to change their behavior" - especially when this person (or these people!) are children.  After all, we've been around for longer and we know what we're doing and we were fine before our children started misbehaving, right?   My guest today, parent-of-three Chrystal, had encountered this mentality not just about her children, but also about her husband.  In fact, when she went to couple's therapy with her husband it was with a sense of relief: "Finally, I'm going to find out what's wrong with him, because there's nothing wrong with me!"   She always figured: "If that person didn't act like that then I wouldn't need to react the way I'm reacting...and I legitimately thought that everyone else was responsible for my behavior."   Then she realized that her husband wasn't responsible for how she was feeling...she was.   Now she was ready to make the same leap related to her relationship with her spirited children, but needed new tools.  They would melt down over every tiny issue (not enough honey on the oatmeal!  Now not enough cream!  I don't WANT to get dressed!), and Chrystal found herself constantly scrambling to placate them.   Join us for a conversation about the new ideas she's learned, and how her children now don't cooperate blindly because she's forcing them, but express their agency while finding ways to collaborate that also meet their needs.  They have real agency in her family (they know she'll hear them and respect their ideas) and because of this, the little issues that used to provoke regular meltdowns are easily solved.  And Chrystal is learning how to set boundaries so she doesn't get walked all over - by her children, or by other members of her family.   Want to make a similar shift in your own interactions with your children?  My Taming Your Triggers workshop will help.   Join the waitlist and we'll let you know when doors reopen. Click the banner to learn more!   Jump to highlights: 01:00 Inviting listeners to join the Taming Your Triggers workshop 04:43 A little bit about Chrystal 11:06 Chrystal’s journey as a parent 13:58 How Chrystal found it difficult to build lasting relationships with parents who were raising their children the same way they were raised and how she found her people in the Taming Your Triggers community. 16:32 The fight, flight, freeze, and fawn responses and how Chrystal resonated to the fawn response. 18:22 The first time Chrystal was able to connect what she’s feeling in her body with her belief systems 20:36 As the eldest of eight children, Chrystal felt that it was her responsibility to make sure everyone is happy when her mother couldn’t cope due to severe postnatal depression, and this has continued on with her character now that they’ve grown up 24:51  When Chrystal decided to set boundaries and have it respected, she found out that her family’s issues can resolve themselves without her getting involved 28:14 The profound shift with for Chrystal in terms of what changed in her family after going through the Taming Your Triggers workshop is that she is now able to see situations as more than a win-lose situation 32:20 With two strong-willed daughters and a son who is also energetic, breakfast has been a challenge in Chrystal’s home. She’s learned to apply problem solving to find solutions, but the biggest revelation for her has been that it is okay for her children to have these big feelings 38:15 Chrystal explores the question, “Why should our children listen to us?” as she discovers extrinsic and intrinsic motivation 38:55 A beautiful moment when Chrystal was having a hard time getting her daughter ready for school, and another instance when she was having some friend over their house 47:08 Having the tools is great but it is just better to have a framework to implement it and really being intentional 51:20 Wrapping up with a sense of compassion.   Resources mentioned in this episode: Taming Your Triggers workshopUpbringingwith Hannah & KeltyNonviolent Communication Podcast EpisodeThe Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind, by Daniel Siegel

This episode kicks off a series on the intersection of parenting and food.   We begin today with a conversation with Dr. Lindo Bacon, where we bust a LOT of myths about the obesity epidemic that is said to be plaguing people in the United States and other countries that follow a similar diet.   The messaging we get from government entities seems pretty simple: being fat is bad for you. It causes increased risk for a host of diseases as well as early death. If you're fat, you should lose weight because then your risk of getting these diseases and dying early will be reduced.   But what if this wasn't true?   What if this messaging had been established by people who own companies that manufacture weight loss products who sit on panels that advise international governmental entities like the World Health Organization?   What if body fat was actually protective for your health?   We dig into all these questions and more in this provocative interview.   We'll continue this series with episodes looking specifically at sugar, as well as supporting parents who have or continue to struggle with disordered eating, and how to support children in developing eating habits that will serve them for a lifetime, not just get the vegetables into them today.   Jump to highlights: (01:00) Introducing Dr. Lindo Bacon and starting our series of episodes on the intersection of parenting and food (02:22) Stripping the word ‘fat’ of it’s pejorative meaning and reclaiming the term while acknowledging that it may be jarring for some people (03:09) Kicking off the conversation with how we measure health using BMI and how it might not be accurate (05:03) The resistance to Katherine Flegal’s seminal research in weight and longevity (05:49) The development of the Body Mass Index was with scientific bias to fit the bell curve (07:30) Higher body weight does not necessarily mean a person has greater risk of poor health (10:59) We actually know that the research is highly exaggerated in terms on the role that it plays on health (13:16) Dr. Bacon’s turning point: When they found out that BMI recommendations were created by an organization funded by pharmaceutical companies who produce weight loss drugs and products (17:35) Taking the issue one step further with the American Medical Association’s recommendation whether to categorize obesity as a disease or not (19:19) The Obesity Paradox is an observation in the research that people who are obese who get the same diseases as those with ‘normal’ weight are living longer (21:15) The concept of dieting just doesn’t work according to the data (30:33) A story of Dr. Bacon’s and their father’s knee problems (34:40) Individual factors only accounts to 25% to somebody’s total health outcomes and social determinants account to about 60% (42:05) It is cool right now to be your authentic self but not everyone can so easily be their authentic self when their authentic selves are not valued by society at large (45:48) Improving the health of individuals is more communal than individual   Resource Links: Health at Every Size, by Lindo Bacon Body Respect: What Conventional Health Books Get Wrong, Leave Out, and Just Plain Fail to Understand about Weight, by Lindo Bacon and Lucy Aphramor Radical Belonging: How to Survive and Thrive in an Unjust World (While Transforming it for the Better), by Lindo Bacon Association For Size Diversity and Health   [accordion] [accordion-item title="Click here to read the full transcript"] Jen Lumanlan  00:02 Hi, I'm Jen and I host the Your Parenting Mojo Podcast. We all want her children to lead fulfilling lives, but it can be so hard to keep up with the latest scientific research on child development and figure out whether and how to incorporate it into our own approach to parenting. Here at Your Parenting Mojo, I do the work for you by critically examining strategies and tools related to parenting and child development that are grounded in scientific research and principles of respectful parenting.   Jen Lumanlan  00:29 If you'd like to be notified when new episodes are released, and get a free guide called 13 Reasons Why Your Child Won't Listen To You and What to Do About Each One, just head over to YourParentingMojo.com/SUBSCRIBE. You can also continue the conversation about the show with other listeners in the Your Parenting Mojo Facebook group. I do hope you'll join us.   Jen Lumanlan  01:00 Hello, and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo Podcast. I'm very excited about our episode today because we're at the very beginning of what I hope is going to be quite an extended series of episodes at the intersection of parenting and food. And I'm hoping to look at ideas like eating disorders and intuitive eating and how sugar impacts our children and what we should do about that, if anything, how we should approach eating issues with our children more broadly and how we can all be a little bit happier in our bodies. And today we're kicking off this series with Dr. Lindo Bacon whose seminal book Health at Every Size was written over a decade ago now and which exposes how the ideas that most of us believe about body fat and weight are actually not grounded in scientific research. She followed that by co-authoring a book called Body Respect, and her most recent book is called Radical Belonging: How to Survive and Thrive in an Unjust World (While Transforming it for the Better). Dr. Bacon earned their PhD in physiology from the University of California Davis, where they currently serve as an Associate Nutritionist. They also hold graduate degrees in Psychology and Exercise Metabolism. Dr. Bacon is industry independent, which means they have pledged not to accept money from the weight loss, pharmaceutical or food industries, which makes them almost unique among non governmental researchers on issues related to weight and food. Welcome, Dr. Bacon. I'm so glad you're here.   Dr. Lindo Bacon  02:20 Thanks, Jen. I'm looking forward to talking to you.   Jen Lumanlan  02:22 And before we get started, I just want to acknowledge that I'm going to follow your lead in your books by using the word fat in this interview and using that in a way that's really been stripped of its pejorative connotations. And many people it seems who are fat, who are now reclaiming the term in this way. But I do acknowledge that it may be jarring to some listeners to hear if they aren't accustomed to hearing it like that.   Dr. Lindo Bacon  02:45 Yeah, I think it's important to name all of that. So thank you, Jen. And I also just want to note for the listeners that if you do feel uncomfortable when you hear the word, then that's something helpful to look at, because that really shows that you've absorbed the cultural ideas about that. And hopefully, we can start to normalize it so that you could feel better about it.   Jen Lumanlan  03:09 Yeah, and hopefully this conversation is going to be a big part of that as well. So I wonder if we can start at the beginning with what I know is a big topic as it were, which is how we measure health. And so this body mass index, or BMI for short, has become the standard measure of how much weight a person is carrying compared to their height. And it's best considered an indicator of how healthy they are in some way. And it's used by everybody from the Centers for Disease Control in the US to the World Health Organization. Is the BMI actually a good measure - I guess I should start by saying of anything at all and then we can go from there and to health.   Dr. Lindo Bacon  03:47 You right. I think that your question already answered itself, but it really does not play much of a role in health at all. And I think that its use has been quite damaging to people. So I wish that the medical industry would throw it out.   Jen Lumanlan  04:03 Yeah. So where did it come from? How did we end up here?   Dr. Lindo Bacon  04:07 Well, it actually was written by or devised by someone who was a statistician looking at insurance, and that it wasn't meant or designed for health. And it was meant to look at what's going on in a population, not what's going on in an individual. And it's amazing when you start to look at the research of how it corresponds to health and you find some really surprising things. For example, it's pretty clear from the research that that the people that are in that category we call overweight are the people that are living longest. Most research studies are showing that and the people that are in the obese category, most of them are living as long as people in the normal weight category, or the I'm sorry that we call normal wait.   Jen Lumanlan  05:03 Yeah   Dr. Lindo Bacon  05:03 Right. And it's only really at the very extremes that you start to see things that are different. Mm hmm. And but yet, the end, there was an expose a that was actually published just a few days ago by a former CDC researcher, who was her name was Katherine Flegal, and she actually did some of the seminal research in weight and longevity. And the history she said, of how she was shut down, and how all of people in industry were trying to discredit her, it was just amazing to see how much resistance she ran up against, and how people fought her.   Jen Lumanlan  05:49 Yeah, it's, I think that that seems to be quite pervasive. And I think we're gonna talk some more about how political issues impact the way that we think about these things. But I just want to really be crystal clear about this, we were talking about somebody who was a statistician who developed the original idea of the BMI and was looking to understand and define the characteristics of normal man. And we can insert the word white in the middle of there I assume. And fitting that distribution around the norm. He wasn't, you know, he's not looking to understand an individual person's health. He's trying to find this statistically interesting relationship that fits the bell curve. And somehow we've latched on to this idea, and we're using it to try to say whether an individual person is healthy or not?   Dr. Lindo Bacon  06:38 Right? I know, it's really interesting. I think about, like, if you did a height curve, you would come up with the same bell curve. And I would be all the way the extreme end in the 5%, because I'm rather short. But obviously, that doesn't indicate disease. You know, it's just, there will be some people who are on the extremes of the bell curve. That's the nature of bell curves.   Jen Lumanlan  07:04 Right. Yeah, somebody has to be there. Okay. And so I'm wondering if we can look at this sort of commonly accepted wisdom that people with higher body weight have a greater risk of poor health, and you've already sort of indicated implied and mentioned that that's not necessarily the truth.   Dr. Lindo Bacon  07:23 Right.   Jen Lumanlan  07:24 What's going on here? Why is the commonly accepted idea different from what the research is actually showing us?   Dr. Lindo Bacon  07:30 Right. Well, as I mentioned, with the suppression of the researcher, who came up with this, one of the things that was fascinating to me in that was, nobody debated her with actual data that challenged it. It was more just, you know, like, they didn't want it out. Right. And that that was what was fascinating. And still to this day, you'll see almost regular reports in the media about how damaging that is. And one of the things that I want to suggest is that every time we see a new research study, we've got a look at whether our belief system is so strongly entrenched, that we see through that lens, and we can't really see our data anymore. And that's what's happening. So for example, if you have a research study that shows that the majority of people that have diabetes are fat, then they'll make the conclusion that if you're fat, you're going to get diabetes. Right. And we do, in fact, have that research that shows that, but that research doesn't demonstrate that it's the fat that's causing the disease. There could be other mitigating factors that play a role. For example, there's one obvious factor that's going to play a role. And that's that the people that are fatter meet up with a lot of weight stigma, people don't treat them as well. And we know from the research that when people are stigmatized and disrespected, it wreaks havoc in their body and increases health problems. So it's very clear that that's an example of something that's a contributor, and we can come up with a lot of other contributors. But when we start to kind of tease everything out, we just don't have solid research that shows that it's causative of most of the diseases for which it's blamed.   Jen Lumanlan  09:39 Yeah, and I think that's such a super important point that there is a ton of evidence linking these two things, they are correlated, they vary together. And then there's, there are fun things you can find online to find completely unrelated things that happened to be co-correlated and you know, things that are wildly, wildly unrelated and could never be connected and they're correlated. So they must be, you know, one must cause the other right? When no that's not the case. It's entirely possible that diabetes may be maybe a contributing factor to increase body weight. That one of the other factors may be causing the body weight. We just don't know. I mean, I mean, and that's not the story we're told, right? The story we're told is, if you get fat, you're going to get these chronic diseases.   Jen Lumanlan  10:28 Right.   Dr. Lindo Bacon  10:29 And just to throw in a kind of a funny story there, I actually saw research that was showing that there are more drownings that happen among people that eat ice cream. Right.   Jen Lumanlan  10:44 I'm never eating ice cream again.   Dr. Lindo Bacon  10:44 Which doesn't make sense. You eat ice cream in the summer and you're more likely to be in the water. Right. But it's not the ice cream that's causing the drowning.   Jen Lumanlan  10:53 Yeah, thank you.   Dr. Lindo Bacon  10:55 That's just an example that shows that.   Jen Lumanlan  10:58 Thank you for that.   Dr. Lindo Bacon  10:59 And I should also say that we actually do know a lot about this, that the research that has tried to tease out a lot of these things, find that it is highly exaggerated in terms of the role that it plays in health. And so that's very clear from the research. But, of course, it's not what people are saying. And I think every time we see a disconnect between what's commonly believed, and what this data actually shows us that one of the big reasons that's going to underlie that is you have to ask, well, who benefits from us not understanding. And there is a huge industry of people that are making money off of our body hatred. It's not just the diet industry and certain aspects of the health industry and the bariatric surgeons, but it's also people that sell cars, can sell them off of the ability that you're going to be sexy, and, you know, fine, and everybody's gonna want you if you drive this car. So everybody seems to capitalize on our insecurity in order to make money. The more we hate ourselves, the more they can use it.   Jen Lumanlan  12:22 Yeah, okay, so let's follow that thread for a minute, then, because there are some super concrete pieces to this as well and around following the money, which is a big reason that I wanted to talk to you, because you do not accept money from outside sources that are affiliated with the industry. And it seems pretty clear that when you look at research that's funded by industries, you know, soft drinks and juice and milk, the results are four to eight times more likely to be favorable to the funders product than when that study is not funded by the manufacturer of the product. And the same goes for the drug trials. And a lot of the weight loss drug papers, you know, the scientific papers are written by the very company that is trying to sell us this medicine. They supply the text to the researchers, and then the researchers publish it. It's almost mind boggling the extent to which this infiltrates what we think of as value neutral science.   Dr. Lindo Bacon  13:16 Right? And I tell you, it makes my job hard because I'm a scientist, right. I'm supposed to be looking at data. And I don't trust most of the research that's coming out, because I know what goes on behind the scenes and how much manipulation there is. And I'll give you an example of this, because I think it's really helpful to see and it's about BMI. And the reason I'm going to give this example is because it really marks the turning point in my career and why I'm talking about these issues today. So I'm going to take you back to 1998 when I was getting my PhD in physiology, with a specialty in weight science. And there was one magical day in June I forget the the actual date that millions of Americans, I think it was 21 million Americans went to bed and normal healthy bodies. And they woke up the next day with a medical designation of being fat and a prescription that they're supposed to try to lose weight. And that wasn't because everybody gained weight overnight. That was because the government lowered our standards for what they would be calling overweight and obesity. Now, I was shocked that they did that, because I was in the middle of my literature review. And what I was seeing was that if anything, we should majorly raise those numbers, not lower them. So I wanted to look at why they did what they did. And I found out which group had devised the government on this and a lot of the advice that they took came from the National Institute of Health advisory panel. And fortunately, I knew somebody that was on that. And I called

Many of us haven't been in each other's homes for a while now, but pretty soon we'll be getting together inside again.  And our children will be heading inside, in their friends' houses.   People store guns inside.   Are you certain that nobody owns a gun in any of the places your child plays?   If they do own a gun, are you certain they store it safely?   If not, you need to ask.   That's one issue we discuss in this interview with Dr. Nina Agrawal, a board-certified pediatrician who has expertise in violence against children.  She co-founded the Gun Safety Committee for the American Academy of Pediatrics in New York State, and is leading the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force for the American Medical Women’s Association.   Another issue is the gun violence that is primarily faced by children of color, which turns out to affect a far greater number of children.   And how is this all linked to the Peloton recall?  You'll have to listen in to find out...   Jump to highlights here: (01:00) Indoor playdates are ramping up...will your child be safe? (02:29) Introducing Dr. Nina Agrawal, pediatrician and co-founder of the American Academy of Pediatrics' Gun Safety Committee in New York State (02:58) Understanding how big is the scope of gun violence against children (06:15) The Dickey Amendment: Explaining the massive lack of data and research on gun violence and safety (11:24) The ways that gun violence affects children that we might not expect (12:32) “I get woken up at night to the sound of gunshots.” (17:09) The racial disparity in how children are affected by gun violence (20:46) More people purchased guns in 2020, and there are more first-time owners too (23:39) The statistical likelihood of children coming to harm if they live with a firearm in their household (27:00) Just telling kids not to touch guns doesn't work (even if you think of your child as one who is 'sensible,' and you've talked with them about gun safety) (30:45) The Asking Saves Kids Campaign helps to keep kids safer (33:06) The surprising link between children involved in gun violence and the Peloton treadmill recall (36:07) In American culture, banning all guns can't be the answer (40:52) Effective Child Access Laws (41:45) How to create safer environments for children through building communities [accordion] [accordion-item title="Click here to read the full transcript"] Jen Lumanlan  00:02 Hi, I'm Jen and I host the Your Parenting Mojo Podcast.   Jen Lumanlan  00:06 We all want her children to lead fulfilling lives, but it can be so hard to keep up with the latest scientific research on child development and figure out whether and how to incorporate it into our own approach to parenting. Here at Your Parenting Mojo, I do the work for you by critically examining strategies and tools related to parenting and child development that are grounded in scientific research on principles of respectful parenting. If you'd like to be notified when new episodes are released, and get a free guide called 13 Reasons Why Your Child Won't Listen To You & What To Do About Each One, just head over to YourParentingMojo.com/SUBSCRIBE. You can also continue the conversation about the show with other listeners in the Your Parenting Mojo Facebook group. I do hope you'll join us.   Jen Lumanlan  01:00 Hello, and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo Podcast. And today we're going to discuss a topic that I think is about to come into parents' consciousness in a way that it really hasn't as much over the last year. And for some of us, that's a result of our privilege. And I was reflecting that as vaccinations for children become more available, we're probably going to start moving towards indoor play dates without parents being around because when my daughter went into when we went into sort of lockdown, she was young enough that she wasn't really doing playdates indoors with other people in anyone else's houses. And so I never really felt as though I needed to ask, "Are there guns in your house?" because I was always there to supervise. And so of course, over the last year, she's played with a lot of kids on our street, and they're always outside and I can always hear them. And so the danger doesn't seem to be there in the same way for me in those outdoor playdates scenarios. But of course, as vaccinations become available, and these things start to move inside, I don't know which of my friends has guns in their houses. And if I'm kind of uncomfortable asking about this, I'm guessing that a lot of parents haven't even thought about it and don't have it on their collective radar yet. So I wanted to bring that up into our consciousness before we actually need it. And then, of course, there's another issue here as well, that we're going to delve into fairly deeply today, which is that gun violence is becoming increasingly common in a wide variety of settings that children live in and are exposed to, and that this can have really big impacts on them. And that that isn't necessarily talked about or studied nearly as much.   Jen Lumanlan  02:29 And we have a very special guest here with us today to talk about these issues. Dr. Nina Agrawal. She's a pediatrician who is board certified in Child Abuse Pediatrics, and she has expertise in Violence Against Children. She was on the faculty at Columbia University in Child and Adolescent Health. She co-founded the Gun Safety Committee for the American Academy of Pediatrics in New York State, and she's leading the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force for the American Women's Association. Welcome Dr. Agrawal.   Dr. Nina Agrawal  02:56 Thank you so much for having me, Jen.   Jen Lumanlan  02:58 All right. So I wonder if we can maybe start by just understanding how big is the scope of this problem, and piggybacking on that, how much do we know about how big is the scope of this problem, and why don't we know as much as we might want to know?   Dr. Nina Agrawal  03:12 Right, great question. Right now, guns are the leading cause of death in children 1 to 19 years of age. Before it was motor vehicle accidents.   Jen Lumanlan  03:22 Yeah.   Dr. Nina Agrawal  03:23 Now it's firearm. So it's something that's a health issue. It's a public health issue. It's a safety issue affecting all children.   Jen Lumanlan  03:34 Okay. And yeah, I actually hadn't seen those latest statistics, the peer reviewed papers I was looking at from 2018 still showed it in that number two position, so. So that's an unfortunate development over the last couple of years that that position has switched then. And it doesn't affect everybody equally, right? It affects some children more than others.   Dr. Nina Agrawal  03:53 Yes, definitely. Racially, it affects Black children disproportionately. Blacks, and then Hispanics, and then White children.   Jen Lumanlan  04:00 Okay. And I noticed that actually, the way that this data is collected, we might think, Oh, it's fairly easy to understand how prevalent this kind of thing is, how prevalent injuries are. And actually, there's a couple of different ways of estimating it. But the most common way is using data from the Centers for Disease Control, which is sampled from 100 hospitals. And I'm just thinking, Okay, there are 1000s of trauma centers that are dealing with this kind of thing. Can a sample of 100 hospitals give us a complete picture of what the actual prevalence rates for this are?   Dr. Nina Agrawal  04:34 Right? Yeah, as with a lot of injuries in children, it's a combination of hospital data and mass data and media. We're increasingly using media data. There's a gun violence archive that looks at shootings in communities, and then the CDC data. I think one of the problems with the CDC data is that it doesn't include non fatal injuries and only includes fatal injuries. So we're missing a lot of children who suffered non fatal injuries and understanding those so that we can prevent them.   Jen Lumanlan  05:09 Yeah. Okay. And I think when a lot of parents think about guns, one thing that they may be most kind of afraid of the immediate fear is of a mass shooting. Because there's get so much publicity, right? Is that the thing that we should be the most afraid of statistically speaking?   Dr. Nina Agrawal  05:25 Statistically, definitely not. It's 1% of shootings. So much more common is homicide, and suicide, and unintentional injuries. And then mass shootings are a small percentage, but they gain the most immediate attention. And because again, the most immediate attention, they gain the most resources - prevention resources. And so we have children dying every day from homicide and suicide and yet, we're really not devoting the investing in prevention of deaths in those children due to firearms.   Jen Lumanlan  06:00 Yeah, okay. And I think a big reason why we're not investing as much in the pieces of this that really matter are that we don't understand it well enough. And there's a reason we don't understand much about gun violence, right? Can you tell us about that reason.   Dr. Nina Agrawal  06:15 I love telling the story. It's a story that's not known and once people hear about it, they're like, Oh, my God, this makes sense. So anyhow, enough of the preamble. What it is, is that in 1994-95, there's a study that came out in the New England Journal of Medicine that found that if you had a gun in your home, you're a gun owner, you or somebody else in your home are more likely to die or get injured from that firearm, rather than protect yourself from an intruder. So, most people a lot of people keep it for self protection. It actually doesn't work that way.You know, the statistics tell you you're actually more danger from hurting yourself or somebody that you care about in your home. And so this study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The NRA was not happy about it, because that would affect firearm sales. And they, you know, they basically lobbied Representative Dickey of Arkansas, and Representative Dickey inserted a amendment called the Dickey Amendment after his name, saying that no funds can be used by the CDC or the NIH eventually went to the NIH that could be used to advocate or promote gun control. And so what they did is this Congress took away money from the CDC that had been used for firearm prevention research and earmarked it for concussions. And the CDC doesn't have this pot of money where they can use it indiscriminately. It has to be earmarked for a certain, you know, injury or health issue. And so then basically, they had very limited funding and research plummeted. And it you know, that Dickey Amendment created a chilling effect on the entire research community, because funding is so limited for research and, you know, people didn't want their funding taken away for other things that they could do research on. So gun violence research plummeted. And with that, are solutions. So this was in 1996, the Dickey Amendment passed. And every year, it gets reapproved. And there have been efforts through certain presidential administrations to try and repeal it, but it just keeps going on and on and more recently, in 2019, for the first time, the CDC was appropriated $25 million for gun violence prevention research. And I just want to make a distinction between gun control and gun violence prevention. And the distinction is that public health issues are not trying to control an injury or an illness. We're trying to create safety when it comes to injuries. So just like we don't say highway control, we say highway safety. We don't say cars control, we say car safety. We don't say cribs control, we say crib safety. So this is gun safety. We understand that you can have guns, but we just want them to be safe around children.   Jen Lumanlan  09:22 Yeah. Okay. Thank you for that. And I just want to pull out some pieces of what you said, particularly for listeners who are outside the US. So what we're talking about here is that the CDC is the Centers for Disease Control, and NIH is the National Institute for Health and that these organizations fund scientists working in academia to conduct studies on a whole array of things related to health, but specifically here we're talking about gun safety issues. And the NRA, the National Rifle Association, which has an enormous amount of lobbying power here in the US, and that they had approached Jim Dickey and said, You know, this is this is something that you need to be with us on and he agreed. And I was actually interested to see that he has more recently flipped on that. And he has regretted his role in the stifling the research. He didn't want there to be more gun control. And that was why he advocated for that, because he, he was, I think, worried that the research was going to lead to ammunition, I guess, as it were, for people who wanted gun control to put that into effect. But he now says that he regrets his role in stifling the flow of research on that. So it's encouraging to see that we are now starting to see the spigot loosened and some money flowing through.   Dr. Nina Agrawal  10:35 Yes, for sure. Yeah, right before he actually died. But right before he died, he became before he died. Well, before he died, he became friends with the person who is Head of the CDC at the time and together, they tried to advocate for Gun Violence Prevention Research.   Jen Lumanlan  10:53 Yeah. Okay. All right. So so thank you for, for telling us that story. And it's always amazing how the politics ends up impacting our view of public health issues. And, and I think that seeing this as a public health issue is really at the core of your approach here. And part of that is because of the way that gun violence impacts children. So I wonder if you can tell us more about your ideas and your research and thinking on how gun violence impacts children and how we should be thinking about it?   Dr. Nina Agrawal  11:24 Yes, I think we need to think about gun violence in children more broadly. We have been in the research setting, we've been thinking about his injuries and deaths. How do we prevent an injury? How do we prevent a death? And we're making some headway in that, but what we want is, you know, we're making headway in certain areas. So suicide and accidental injury. So like the toddler who picks up a gun on a play date, how do we prevent that from happening? We haven't made a lot of inroads in homicide affecting children. And that is the most common intent in children and youth. So we haven't made a lot of inroads and prevention of homicide. The other thing that we don't talk about his exposure to gun violence. And when I was working in the Bronx, you know, as a pretty some of I was working in the South Bronx, and it was a busy ER, a lot of people come in with gunshot wounds, but the ones that we weren't, weren't coming in or weren't presenting to medical attention, were the kids who are having mental health problems because of exposure. You know, they're having anxiety they're having, they're having depression.   Dr. Nina Agrawal  12:32 I am actually authoring a book chapter on exposure. And in that included this anecdote of a five year old that I was interviewing, and I asked her about eating and sleeping and you know, school, and she said, she didn't sleep well. Why not? And she goes, she told me there were noises that kept her up at night. I was like, Well, what were those noises and not expecting her to say this. She said they were gunshots. And I was like, Well, what do you do she when that happens? And she said, Well, I get a snack, and I go back to sleep. And it was this five year old living in this, this world of trauma in her bedroom. So the gun violence is going on physically outside her bedroom, but it's coming through into her home, it's coming through into her development and and her health. And what happens to those kids and from the adverse childhood experiences studies, we know that those violent exposures affect children's health across the long term. And they you know, they may develop academic problems, behavioral problems in adolescence, with gun violence, they may become victims and perpetrators. And then later on in life, if they don't die from gun violence, they may have chronic health issues. So basically, you know, what happens before age five children see and hear can affect their brains and their lives, the trajectory of their lives forever.   Jen Lumanlan  14:04 Yeah, yeah. And so to dig a little more deeply into some of those things that you mentioned, firstly, you said that, we've made some progress on the things like the accidental deaths and the suicides, which primarily impact White children. And we have not made so much progress on the homicides aspect, which primarily does not impact White children. It's primarily Black children. And so there's a very racially differentiated issue right on where we focused our attention where we've been able to make progress on this.   Dr. Nina Agrawal  14:34 Yeah. And, again, you know, unintentional injuries where a toddler picks up a gun is, again, a very small percentage of gun violence in children. The biggest bucket is homicide, but within that bucket, we haven't made a distinction between unintentional homicide and intentional homicide. So we see this in the news all the time. You know, people are children and even adults getting hit by stray bullets, and they see the wrong place at the wrong tie but is it that person's, you know, I guess it's like, where does the onus? Is it that person, he shouldn't have gone to that restaurant, he shouldn't have gone to that place, the child didn't go into that playground. So I think we need to make a distinction between the unintended target and the intended target. Because the dynamics are going to be different. The environments may be the same, but you know, a mother of a five year old, you know, getting shot by a stray bullet, like, how can we help her keep her child safe? Can we say, you know, look, maybe this area of your neighborhood is not safe. Or maybe we need to go to the community leaders and say, like, hey, this playground is not safe for our children. There's shootings that happen there. They're drug deals that happen there. Let's make this safe. So, you know, there's work that says that it's found that [unrecognized] of safe green spaces, reduces shootings in communities. And I think that is, I think that's a very viable way of keeping children safer.   Jen Lumanlan  16:03 Yeah. And also thinking back to that five year old who's saying, you know, I get woken up at night, and what I'm hearing is gunshots and, and thinking about how that's gonna play out in that five year olds, academic career, you know, maybe she's asleep at school the next day, because she couldn't, she couldn't sleep at nighttime. And then it's like, well, what are the parents doing? Why...

Explore the intriguing misconceptions surrounding attachment theory and its historical roots from post-World War II. Learn how early angst over parent-child attachment may stem from flawed research. The discussion highlights the role of diverse caregivers and challenges traditional views, emphasizing the importance of secure attachments in all relationships. Discover insights on the resilience of children's development, debunking the myth that early experiences dictate future well-being. A fresh perspective on parenting strategies based on solid research awaits!

"Psychological Flexibility" sounds amazing.  Shouldn't we all want that?  After all, psychological flexibility has been significantly positively associated with wellness during the COVID-19 pandemic, and negatively associated with anxiety, depression, and COVID-29-related distress and worry. (But what is it, anyway?!) Psychological Flexibility is about being fully in touch with the present moment and, based on the situation, either continuing or changing your behavior to live in better alignment with your values. Let's break that down a bit: Being fully in touch with the present moment: We spend a good chunk of our lives not fully present.  And there are times when it makes sense - we don't necessarily need to be fully present for every moment of a long drive.  As long as we're present enough to drive safely, we don't need to observe the exact quality of red in the tail light of the driver in front of you. But when we spend most of our lives zoned out on our phones, or rushing from one activity to the next (probably partly so we don't have to sit down and just be), we aren't truly present. Better alignment with your values: We all have values, although perhaps some of us haven't fully articulated them.  We might value raising an independent child, but then step in every time they struggle.  We might value emotional closeness but struggle to actually do it because our parents didn't model it for us.  When we articulate our values, we define what we're working toward. Based on the situation, either continuing or changing your behavior: One of my favorite parts of ACT is the Choice Point: the point at which something doesn't feel right to you.  At this point you get to decide: Am I going to keep doing the same thing I've always done?  Or am I going to do something that brings me into better alignment with my values?   Want to know more?  Dr. Diana Hill, co-author with Dr. Debbie Sorensen, joins me on this episode to discuss their new book ACT Daily Journal: Get Unstuck and Live Fully with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (this is an affiliate link, so I will earn a small commission through your purchase which does not affect the price you pay).  The book walks readers through a series of exercises to help them become more psychologically flexible, through the practice of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).  The concepts in ACT are ones that I've found to be enormously useful both personally and in working with clients, so I'm excited to tell you about them here!   Dr. Diana Hill's Book: ACT Daily Journal: Get Unstuck and Live Fully with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (Affiliate link).   Jump to highlights: (01:26) What is ACT or acceptance and Commitment Therapy (02:07) What is this thing psychological flexibility? (03:48) What are the components of psychological flexibility? (08:07) Cognitive diffusion (11:38) The idea that we could believe that our thoughts are not true is mind boggling to a lot of people (16:36) Values and parenting in particular is such a good one to discuss (18:20) Values are something that are deep within you, that you can pull upon, when you've got nothing left (19:10:) The idea of the choice point (23:36) Perspective taking is probably one of the most important skills we can do for ourselves (27:01) How do we live out committed action (33:55) Our children are naturally beginner's mind (35:18:) One of the things that actually sets humans apart from robots, is our ability to think outside the box (39:58) We can start to teach our children, that it's not about the answer. That there's many ways to solve problems (41:51) The IKEA effect (45:33) Another thing that's really important with embodiment is modeling   [accordion] [accordion-item title="Click here to read the full transcript"] Jen Lumanlan  00:03 Hi, I'm Jen and I host the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. We all want our children to lead fulfilling lives. But it can be so hard to keep up with the latest scientific research on child development and figure out whether and how to incorporate it into our own approach to parenting. Here at Your Parenting Mojo, I do the work for you by critically examining strategies and tools related to parenting and child development that are grounded in scientific research on principles of respectful parenting. If you'd like to be notified when new episodes are released, and get a FREE Guide called 13 Reasons Why Your Child Won't listen To You and What To Do About Each One, just head on over to your YourParentingMojo.com/SUBSCRIBE. You can also continue the conversation about the show with other listeners in the Your Parenting Mojo Facebook group. I do hope you'll join us   Jen Lumanlan  00:48 Hello, and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. We have a guest here today to talk with us about a tool that I actually discovered through her show and I found it to be incredibly helpful both personally and professionally. So our guest is Dr. Diana Hill, and she's co host with three of her colleagues of the Psychologists Off The Clock podcast, and one of her co hosts is Dr. Yael Schonbrun, who we had on the show to discuss work life balance. And then Dr. Hill actually hosted me on Psychologists Off the Clock and we talked about homeschooling and social justice and parenting and stuff like that. And now she's here with us today to discuss one of her favorite topics, which is acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which is shortened to act. So Dr. Hill has just published a book with her colleague and Psychologists Off the Clock at co-host Debbie Sorensen, called Acts Daily Journal: Get unstuck and live fully with acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which isn't geared specifically toward parents, but there's so much in it that's going to help parents. So welcome Dr. Hill. It's great to have you here.   Diana Hill  01:45 Thank you, Jen, it's so good to be here with you and my interview with you is one of my favorites. So it's time to have the table's turned here and talk about ACT and and specifically around parenting because it turns out if you're more psychologically flexible as a person, it rubs off on to your parenting, and then that rubs off on to your kids too. So I love to talk more about it.   Jen Lumanlan  02:05 Yeah, awesome. So maybe we can start there with Firstly, what is this thing psychological flexibility? And why does it matter? Why does it make a difference? How does it make a difference in our lives?   Diana Hill  02:14 Well, a psychological flexibility is a construct that's been researched for decades now. And some of the research is actually starting to get into the general public. And what it is, is, it's your ability to stay present, open up to your full life experience, not get hooked by your thoughts, and orient your actions towards your values towards what really matters to you, even when life gets difficult. So you can see how even just that term could be helpful as a parent, right? And   Jen Lumanlan  02:43 keep going. I'm not saying it.   Diana Hill  02:47 And what the research has shown is that there's really these Six Core Processes, ways in which you engage with the world that help you become more psychologically flexible. And when you're psychologically flexible. Not only do you have less chances of developing things like anxiety and depression, but specifically with parenting, some of the meta analyses that are showing up with parenting is that psychologically flexible parents engage in more positive parenting practices, they're less harsh, as well as not super overly permissive, you see less spillover effects of stress onto kids. So they did some studies looking at psychological flexibility during COVID with parents and parents that were more psychologically flexible during COVID. Not only did they have less conflict in their relationship with their partners, there was less impact of the stress of COVID on their kids. This set of processes is turning out to be in the research one of the key factors in human flourishing and functioning in lots of different domains of our lives.   Jen Lumanlan  03:47 Okay, I'm convinced. So what are the components of psychological flexibility?   Diana Hill  03:52 Well, there's six of them and you can kind of think of them Steven Hayes, who's one of the cofounders of ACT or Acceptance  a Commitment Therapy talks about like sides of a box. So six sides of the box, that together build your psychological flexibility. And some of them are fairly familiar to folks we've all heard about being present. That's one of them, being able to stay present in the moment sort of mindfulness, but it's a little different in ACT being present has more to do with being present where it matters, because you can't be mindful all of the time. But in that moment, when your kid is showing, like pulling out stuff from the backpack, and they're showing you a piece of artwork and you're on your phone, this is a time to be present because they're bidding for attention. They're bidding for connection, right? So being present when it matters to you as a parent. A second process is about acceptance. And in Act, acceptance isn't sometimes that can be a term that people don't like. It's like I don't want to accept that.   Jen Lumanlan  04:52 I don't want to just roll over and let things happen.   Diana Hill  04:55 Yeah, so acceptance is not about being passive, actually acceptance is not about approval or liking something, but it's really allowing it to be, right. So for me with my youngest child, he had colic. And for the first four months of his life, he screamed, non stop. And so I did all sorts of stuff to try and make him to stop crying I, I bounced, and I walked in, I played music, and I sing. And then I remember one day, when I was so exhausted, and burned out, and just really tired of getting him to stop crying, I decided I was going to stop trying to get him to stop crying. And instead, I was going to accept that this is how he is expressing himself. He's working it out, neurologically, whatever was going on. And what I chose to do is to love him, and bond with him while he was crying, instead of trying to get him to stop. So that's an example of acceptance and Act, which is really opening up and allowing for our full inner experience.   Jen Lumanlan  05:53 Yeah. And just a pause on that for a second, how did your experience shift after that happened? Because I think that's the profound part, right? What was different for you, after you decided that you were just going to accept that?   Diana Hill  06:04 Well, I think for many of us, as parents, we've all had that experience of wanting to fix our kids. And when we're engaging and fixing, there's actually something in motivational interviewing called the fixing reflex, which is our tendency to fix things that we don't like, what it does is it actually can derail us from engaging the very values that we care about. So for me, when I was trying to get him to stop crying, I was walking around in circles of my dinner of my dinner table, and my other child was watching, like, His head was circling back and I was not engaged with him, because I was so focused on getting my child to stop crying, right. I'm not saying that we shouldn't sued or, you know, care for our crying babies. But when it becomes that you are trying to fix something, some kind of internal experience inside of yourself as a parent, and you're trying to make it go away, at the cost of you engaging in the world parenting in the way that you want to be, then it's called something called experiential avoidance, which is actually the opposite of acceptance. So for me, it was liberating my child did not he didn't cry less by me doing that I just related to the whole experience lesson, it freed me up a little bit to be there with him be present with him, which is ultimately, what he probably really needed most from me.   Jen Lumanlan  07:21 Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. Okay, so what are some of the other components of it?   Diana Hill  07:26 Okay, so there's six and you can see why Debbie, and I wrote a book on this? I'll break it down. And in the act, daily journal, we take each one of these processes, and we really do break them down into little tiny nuggets that you try out in your life day by day. So the two that we've mentioned, are more acceptance based processes. And there's another one that's really kind of fun, because it's unique to act or to these new modern approaches to psychology, so act as sort of research based approach to psychology that has taken a different approach to thoughts than what a lot of people maybe even know about, like cognitive behavioral therapy. And in Act, we do something called cognitive diffusion. And I could do a little, it's actually I think, this is best demonstrated not necessarily described, so I'm going to have you imagine or maybe if you wouldn't mind being fully my, my guinea pig. A thought that you struggle with as a parent. It could be a self critical thought, it could be some, so some of the ones that you know, are common are like, I'm not doing enough, or, you know, even as I'm talking people are listening to these psychological flexibility skills. And they're like, Oh, that's I'm not flexible. I'm not good enough.   Jen Lumanlan  08:47 Alright, let's go with, there isn't enough of me to go around that my husband and my daughter will often talk over each other at the same time asking me for things, and I feel pulled in different directions.   Diana Hill  09:00 Okay, so one of those is I feel pulled in different directions, which I would say isn't a thought that's just an experience, like that. We've all had that feeling of like, Oh, I feel pulled, I want to be in many places at once and that probably points, we'll talk a little bit more about values that probably points to some of your values, things that you care about. But there isn't enough of me to be around. What I hear in there is that that could be a sticky thought it could get in the way of you being able to be present when when your husband and child are talking over you. So I want you to imagine that thought were written across your hand, Jen, there isn't enough of me to go around. And imagine you're at the dinner table with your partner and your child. And that thought were just like really close up to your face. So imagine it's waiting on your hand and put your hand right up to your face like the thought.   Jen Lumanlan  09:48 Covering my eyes?   Diana Hill  09:49 Aha, covering your eyes. Okay. Now, if that thought were written across your hand and your hand was in the spot, how well could you see the thought for what it is? So close up to your eyes.   Jen Lumanlan  10:02 WelI, I mean, it's blocking my view, although it's blurry.   Diana Hill  10:05 It's blurry. Yeah. And if it's really close up, actually, the thought itself is blurry, you wouldn't necessarily be able to read it and how well would you be able to see your partner and your child?   Jen Lumanlan  10:17 Hmm, very little.   Diana Hill  10:18 Very little. This is what we call cognitive fusion. We're so stuck on our thoughts. We can't even see what's around us. Now, what I want you to do is slowly move your hand away from your face. Imagining that that thought is still written on your hand? And can you look down and and read the thought if it were written on your hand? Okay. And then could you look around the dinner table, engage with your partner? Have a conversation with your child? Right? Okay. And notice that I didn't cut off your hand, I didn't ask you to write a new thought on your hand.   Jen Lumanlan  10:53 Yeah, you didn't change anything about at all?   Diana Hill  10:57 Yeah, I didn't tie your hand around your back. And in fact, if I tied your hand around your back, you'd have one less hand at the dinner table to work with. Right, what we did is we did something called cognitive diffusion, which is getting a little bit of space from your thoughts. And as parents, as humans, we all have thoughts all the time running through our heads. What can get in the way of us being effective parents sometimes is when we believe those thoughts to be true. And those thoughts dictate our behavior, or they cloud us so much that we can't see what's really happening in the present.   Jen Lumanlan  11:32 Yeah, I just want to pause there on what you said, we believe our thoughts to be true. And I talked about this concept with a lot of parents over the years. And the idea that we could believe that our thoughts are not true is mind boggling to a lot of people. And I've talked to some people who have said, You know, I was grew up in a religious commune. And I was trained to believe that my thoughts were a direct channel from God, and so they must be true, they are true. So there's sort of that perspective coming through sometimes. But even if you don't have that perspective, this idea that I think things and they might not be true is absolutely mind blowing to a lot of people. What do we do with our thoughts? If they are potentially not all true? Like, how could the thing we're thinking not be true?   Diana Hill  12:16 Well, that's just that the human mind does is it produces all sorts of thoughts. And actually, when you look at some of the psychological disorders out there. Some of them have more to do with trying to stop yourself from thinking or change your thoughts than they do with just allowing the thoughts to come and go. So you know, a really good example, Insomnia. Right?. One of the things about insomnia that's really interesting is that it's this paradoxical thing that the more you try and make yourself fall asleep, the less likely you're going to sleep, right. And when you have thoughts, as you're going to bed, oftentimes, I call it the, you know, the middle of the night, sort of crisis moment where everything seems so intense and real and true. And we have to figure this out now. And it's so important that I solved this problem at 2am, which I have no way of solving, right. And then the next morning, we wake up, and we're like, oh, yeah, that wasn't, it's not as big a deal. Right? So if your thoughts were true, then you would have the same feeling at 2am, as you do at two o'clock in the afternoon.   Jen Lumanlan  13:18 It still  be a big deal. Right?   Diana Hill  13:19 It would still be a big deal. Right? So the nature of our thoughts. And what's interesting about the human mind, and sort of what neuroscience is showing is that evolutionarily, our...

  We've been in a liminal space for the last 15 months or so, since COVID shutdowns.  (The word 'liminal' comes from the Latin root limen, meaning threshold).   It’s a place where a certain part of our lives has come to an end but the next thing hasn’t yet begun, so we’re in a transitional state.   We're finally starting to see the end of this liminal state but before we can fully emerge into the new world, we need to ask ourselves: what do we want that world to be like?   Do we want to go back to what it was before?   Because the world we had before wasn't working for a lot of parents.  We were constantly rushing our children around from one activity to the next, maybe also trying to balance a career at the same time, attending thirty kids' birthday parties a year and just feeling completely spent, most of the time.   If we don't take the time to think about what we want life to be like when we reopen, chances are it'll look pretty much like it used to.  And that can seem safe!  It's always safer and easier to go back to what we know, rather than forward to what is unknown and scary.   What would something different even look like?   Maybe we would have fewer friends, whom we know much better.   Maybe we would do fewer activities, and spend a bit more time being, rather than always doing.   Maybe we would actually support families financially instead of having a 'families are the bedrock of our society...but you're on your own to provide for it' approach.   In this Mother's Day Momifesto, I explore all of these issues, and encourage you to think about how YOU want to be in this new world.   And if you need help figuring it out, the Parenting Membership is here to help.  We'll support you through the challenges of today (how to prevent tantrums!  raising healthy eaters!  navigating screen time!) while keeping an eye on where we want to go.  Because you need both.   Join the waitlist and we'll let you know when enrollment reopens in May 2026. Click the banner to learn more.   Jump to highlights 01:27 The Mother's Day Momifesto 02:04 COVID shutdown 04:28 School reopenings 07:04 18% of women in the US have taken antidepressants 09:29 We try to control our bodies in a variety of ways 12:27 Success is defined for men 19:38 Women working communities 20:25 Plenty of parents and children's needs are not met by the school system 22:47 Intersectionality - the idea that different parts of our identities intersect 25:10 Public transit systems are geared around men 26:17 Contribution of scientific research on COVID 19- women scientists have published 19% fewer papers as lead author 29:26 Standard Body Mass Index calculations are based on the weight of White people 31:41 Nonviolent Communication 34:06 How we can begin to make a difference 44:55 Learning how to meet our own needs is a great place to start 46:44 Reopening of your Parenting Membership will close on the midnight of May 12   References Andersen, J.P., Nielsen, M.W., Simone, N.L., Lewiss, R.E., & Jagsi, R. (2020). COVID-19 medical papers have fewer women first authors than expected. Elife 9 (2020): e58807. Belsha, K., Rubinkam, M., LeMee, G.L., & Fenn, L. (2020, September 11). A nationwide divide: Hispanic and Black students more likely than White students to start the year online. Chalkbeat. Retrieved from https://www.chalkbeat.org/2020/9/11/21431146/hispanic-and-black-students-more-likely-than-white-students-to-start-the-school-year-online Brody, D.J., & Gu, Q. (2020, September). Antidepressant use among adults: United States, 2015-2018. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved from: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db377.htm#:~:text=During%202015%E2%80%932018%2C%2013.2%25%20of%20adults%20used%20antidepressants%20in,those%20aged%2060%20and%20over. Brody, D.J., Pratt, L.A., & Hughes, J.P. (2018 February).  Prevalence of depression among adults aged 20 and over: United States, 2013-2016. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db303.htm Cevic, M., Haque, S.A., Manne-Goehler, J., Sax, P., Majumder, M.S., & Orkin, C. (2021). Gender disparities in coronavirus disease 2019 clinical trial leadership. Clinical Microbiology and Infection (in press). Retrieved from https://www.clinicalmicrobiologyandinfection.com/article/S1198-743X(20)30785-0/fulltext Coaston, J. (2019, May 28). The intersectionality wars. Vox. Retrieved from https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/5/20/18542843/intersectionality-conservatism-law-race-gender-discrimination Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist policies. University of Chicago Legal Forum Vol. 1989, Iss. 1, Article 8. Retrieved from https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5780707-Demarginalizing-the-Intersection-of-Race-and-Sex Gurrieri, L., Previte, J., & Brace-Govan, J. (2012). Women’s bodies as sites of control: Inadvertent stigma and exclusion in social marketing. Journal of Macromarketing 33(2), 128-143. Jackson, A.S., Ellis, K.J., McFarlin, B.K., Sailors, M.H., & Bray, M.S. (2009). Body mass index in defining obesity of diverse young adults: The Training Intervention and Genetics of Exercise Response (TIGER) study. British Journal of Nutrition 102(7), 1084-1090. Kassova, L. (2020, September 8). The missing perspectives of women in COVID-19 news: A special report on women’s under-representation in news media. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Retrieved from https://www.iwmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/2020.09.16-FULL-COVID-REPORT.pdf Lewis, H. (2021, March 18). It’s time to lift the female lockdown. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/03/sarah-everard-and-female-lockdown/618321/ Livingston, G. (2018, January 18). They’re waiting longer, but U.S. women today more likely to have children than a decade ago. Pew Research Center. Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/01/18/theyre-waiting-longer-but-u-s-women-today-more-likely-to-have-children-than-a-decade-ago/ National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. (n.d.). Criminal justice fact sheet. Author. Retrieved from https://www.naacp.org/criminal-justice-fact-sheet/ National Equity Atlas (n.d.). Car access: Everyone needs reliable transportation acces and in most American communities that means a car. Author. Retrieved from https://nationalequityatlas.org/indicators/Car_access#/ Nuttall, F.Q. (2015). Body Mass Index. Obesity, BMI, and health: A critical review. Butrition Today 50(3), 117-128. Office for National Statistics (n.d.). Homicide in England and Wales: Year ending March 2020. Author. Retrieved from https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/homicideinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2020#groups-of-people-most-likely-to-be-victims-of-homicide Plank, L. (2019). For the love of men: From toxic to a more mindful masculinity. New York: St. Martin’s. Spohn, C. (2017). Race and sentencing disparity. Reforming Criminal Justice: A Report of the Academy for Justice on Bridging the Gap Between Scholarship and Reform 4, 1690186. Retrieved from https://law.asu.edu/sites/default/files/pdf/academy_for_justice/9_Criminal_Justice_Reform_Vol_4_Race-and-Sentencing-Disparity.pdf The New York Times (2021, April 5). As we look ahead to life after the pandemic, many people are wondering what will be different in our lives. Author. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/04/05/us/coronavirus-pandemic.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage The White House (2021, April 28). Fact sheet: The American families plan. Author. Retrieved from https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/04/28/fact-sheet-the-american-families-plan/    

This episode grew out of a post that long-time friend of the podcast, Dr. Laura Froyen, published in a respectful parenting group that we both work in as admins.  In the post she asked people to share how they felt before and after they discovered respectful parenting, and then she created a word cloud of the results.   The words in the 'before' cloud were perhaps predictable - things like 'worried,' 'overwhelmed,' 'resentful,' and 'guilty.'   And the most common word in the 'after respectful parenting' word cloud?   Exhausted.   What on earth is going on here?   In this episode I explore five important reasons why respectful parenting is so hard - and what to do about each of them.   Setting Loving (& Effective!) Limits If you want to make your own transformation from a relationship where your child JUST DOESN’T LISTEN to one where you have mutual care and respect for each other’s needs, then the Setting Loving (& Effective!) Limits workshop is for you. Go from constant struggles and nagging to a new sense of calm & collaboration. I will teach you how to set limits, but we'll also go waaaay beyond that to learn how to set fewer limits than you ever thought possible. Sign up for the Setting Loving (& Effective!) Limits workshop.   Click the banner to learn more.     Jump to highlights: 01:00 Why we find parenting so hard 01:18 Most prominent words before parents discovered respectful parenting 01:58 Five reasons respectful parenting can be hard 03:03 1st reason: Our needs that our parents just didn’t see despite doing the best they could 05:22 The trauma of unmet needs 06:09 2nd reason: The long game that is respectful parenting 08:54 Our culture trains us to want results 09:56 3rd reason: Our values and what we want to do in an ideal world 10:39 Alfie Kohn’s Unconditional Parenting 13:38 Our child's behavior brings up old trauma 14:10 Shifting the way we see our children 15:12 4th reason: When we see these values that we want to live 16:37 The tendency to engage in negative self-talk 17:58 Self compassion and mindfulness 19:11 The last (and perhaps not the last) reason 24:47 Super short summary information.